


Graduation

by Coshledak



Series: get myself back home [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brogane, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coshledak/pseuds/Coshledak
Summary: Shiro's graduation party isn't exactly peak excitement for his new foster brother.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: get myself back home [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/725445
Kudos: 22





	Graduation

Keith comes into his life like a roar.

His parents became registered foster parents towards the end of his senior year. Keith arrived before he graduated. In Shiro’s mind, it’s bad timing. A new kid in the house and it’s a flurry of graduation planning, parties, and celebration about him. He feels additionally worse because he was the one who said “right away.” They were registered now, certified to foster, and he’s as excited for his parents as he is to have a little brother. He’s sort of always wanted one.

It’s April when Keith’s dropped off and the look on his face seems heavier than the duffel bag on his shoulder. He doesn’t look sad, or angry, or any number of things that Shiro heard about in those videos he compulsively checked out when his parents started the foster process. He looks muted. He looks like he doesn’t want to get comfortable, and doesn’t have any expectations of this place except that it’s another stop on his road to eighteen and out of the system.

Shiro decides right then that he’s going to do whatever it takes to change that.

—

Their school district is split into several buildings and Shiro doesn’t usually go to the middle school, but he does today. He came over during his first year in Student Council when they would do some work with the 8th graders to get them ready for high school. It was kind of a lame program, according to his classmates, but he enjoyed it.

He’s enjoying this a lot more, though.

“Who’s next?”

Keith’s schedule has some imperfect creases from where he’s folded, unfolded, and crumpled it up in his hand along the edges. Shiro can hear it when he pulls it up to look, determining a name.

“Mr. Aldrich?”

“Science,” Shiro explains, pointing to a nearby staircase. He indicates the path with a pointer finger, though it’s arbitrary. Keith isn’t looking, and they’re walking up there anyway. “He’s pretty nice, but halfway through the year he gets irritated with kids forgetting to bring stuff to class. Just remember to bring your stuff and you’re golden.”

Keith doesn’t say anything as they mount the stairs, but Shiro doesn’t push him. He does, though, keep a smile on his face and his chin tilted up. If he happens to be glancing towards Keith out of the edge of his vision sometimes well, then, at least he doesn’t notice.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Oops.

“Like what?” And though he will admit to glancing at Keith, he will not admit to knowing _how_ he’s looking at him.

“I don’t know,” Keith murmurs, and it’s clear that he doesn’t and that it bothers him. “Smiling like that.”

Shiro shrugs, getting up the stairs to the second floor, waiting for Keith to cross the last two steps. He takes them in one long stride. “I’ve always wanted a little brother to show around and give advice to about teachers I’ve already had.”

“It’s not like it matters,” Keith says. There’s no harsh bite to his voice, no sting like he wants it to hurt, just an observation. Shiro feels something tug in his chest and he opens his mouth but Keith keeps talking. “It’s already April. School gets out in a few weeks.”

He blinks. _Why did I guess that he meant that totally different?_ He scratches the back of his neck, a little sheepish. “Good point. But that’s still a few weeks, right? May as well make them as smooth as possible.”

Keith has a particularly scrutinizing gaze for someone who’s only twelve. Shiro just stands there and lets him look before Keith shrugs and keeps walking, putting his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Sure.”

Somehow, Shiro thinks his first guess was the right one. 

—

He dodges graduation parties with easy grace. He’s not a horribly outstanding person, but he has friends and invites. Usually, he remembers them all agreeing a month before, _usually_ those things are mostly for family. They’re a way to get some last minute money before going off to college, though most of it will be blown during the summer. Shiro doesn’t feel bad passing them up.

Unfortunately, he can’t pass up his own.

His family isn’t that extensive and several of them on his mother’s side live in Japan. A few fly in, though he’s only been to Japan a handful of times in his life. He thinks they fly in for his mother more than for him, but he doesn’t mind. They kiss him on the cheek and hug him and have a hotel a little ways away because no one flies in just for a graduation party. There are envelopes with newly minted cash inside, clearly exchanged from yen and never touched. The cards have well-wishes in Japanese he can only somewhat read.

From his father’s side of the family comes a similar barrage of colorful paper. They’re accompanied by hugs and inquiries into his future, Adam’s future, where his parents say he’s been accepted to, this that and the other. 

“And where’s Adam?” An uncle asks over potato salad. He’s clearly the type that thinks Adam’s lack of show is indication of a weak relationship. 

“He’s coming by later,” Shiro says, because he’s answered this question before from other relatives. Some of them even asked it the same way. “His basketball team’s senior party is happening, so he’s splitting time between them.”

The uncle gives a noncommittal kind of grunt, and Shiro knows the reason isn’t good enough for him. But he doesn’t really *care* because Adam isn’t dating his uncle.

“Excuse me,” he says, flashing a smile, and slipping back towards the house.

“Where’s your foster brother? Mira said she saw him earlier but I haven’t seen him yet,” asks a particularly plump aunt who lives somewhere vaguely West. Gale. They’re in the kitchen, but most of the festivity is outside. Most of the food is inside.

A faint warning bell that’s now permanently installed in his right temple goes off. He leans and sees a lot of relatives and patio furniture. He sees the one picnic table covered in some relatively cheap plastic table cloth.

“I’ll look for him,” Shiro says, as if that was what had been asked. But he doesn’t peel off right away. Instead he looks at her, feeling the words swell up to his mouth. “But you can just call him my brother, or Keith.”

A look flashes across her face, confusing that mingles to a sort of socialite horror. She touches his arm. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear! I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“It’s okay.” And it is. “Just…’Keith’ or my brother.”

She agrees with the fervency of a person who prefers to gossip than be confrontational and Shiro ducks through the small hallway leading into the living room. It’s the shift of movement to his left that draws his eye to the dining room table where Keith is sitting. There’s a paper plate in front of him, smeared with the sauce that he knows is from the meatballs his dad made, as well as a few chip fragments. There’s a purple plastic cup in his hand.

“There you are,” he hopes it sounds casual, but sometimes Keith has a way of looking at him that makes him feel like he’s done something strange. He rests a hand on his hip. “Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just checking that the eating alone was voluntary.”

Keith’s quiet for a minute, as if considering it. “It’s just a pain when people come talk to me while I’m eating, that’s all.”

Shiro smiles, “Fair enough. Mind if I join you?”

Keith’s eyes scan him, then he knits his eyebrows together before raising them. “You’re not eating.”

“Neither are you.”

He takes a seat beside him but reaches out to ruffle his hair as he does. He notices, just before his hand makes contact, the slight flinch that crease Keith’s face. He pulls his hand back slowly but without making contact. Keith’s time in foster care isn’t something they’ve talked about, but he also isn’t going to push it.

“How about a movie tomorrow?” He offers, and the randomness of the suggestion seems to baffle Keith. He rests his temple against his fist. “Mom and Dad will be out with the relatives visiting from Japan, probably. We could do something to avoid getting sucked into it. I don’t know about you, but listening to Mom talk in Japanese for three hours over lunch isn’t my definition of fun.”

“Three hours for _lunch_?”

Shiro raises an eyebrow, teasing. “We can go with them, if you don’t believe me.”

Keith pulls back a little, as if he realizes he’s been swept up into something too close to friendly, and looks at his plate. He tilts his cup in his hand, but Shiro can’t tell if there’s any liquid in it.

“We could do something else, if you want,” he offers, trying to fill the silence. “Park? Mall? Beach?”

“Doesn’t one of your friends have a graduation party tomorrow?”

The question blindsides him a little bit, seeing as he hasn’t been talking about the graduation parties much. 

“How do you…?”

Keith looks towards the living room, as if making some half gesture to it. “One of the invites fell out of your bag. Your mom put it on the coffee table.”

“Ah.”

“Do you think I’m lying?” That question sounds a bit defensive, almost faintly hostile, but not quite there. It’s a spark, not a flame. Shiro keeps his cool.

“No, I don’t,” he says, and meets the sideways look that Keith is giving him. “But I wouldn’t ask about doing something with you if I didn’t want to.”

“You don’t _have_ to.”

“That’s right, I don’t.” This time, Keith seems a little surprised, though Shiro notices him looking forward again in some attempt not to make it so obvious. “But I _want_ to, that’s why I asked.”

Keith falls quiet again and Shiro sighs, standing up. This time he’s more careful with the movement of his hand before resting it on Keith’s shoulder. There’s still something, but it’s more like a flicker than a flinch. He gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Think about it, okay?”

Later that night, when the bulk of the relatives have left and a few others are gathered near the fire pit chatting, he’s throwing out plates and cups that didn’t quite make it to the garbage. His father has called out twice now about not having to do it, but Shiro just waves him off. In the fading sunlight and gradual build of a cricket symphony, he hears the scrape of the screen door and looks up, expecting Adam.

Instead, it’s Keith on the porch.

Keith lingers on the deck for a bit before making his way across the grass. Shiro’s about to say something but, again, Keith beats him to it.

“Is there a place to rent movies?”

Shiro straightens up but doesn’t look at him, just lets out a stream of air as if it were the steam powering his train of thought. “There’s the library,” he says. “And this store that I swear is one of the last video rental places on the planet. It has all kinds of old movies. It’s pretty…what’s the word? Retro? Old school? Classic?”

He was just going to stop at ‘retro,’ but the slightly scrunched face that Keith makes prompts him to keep going in the hopes that it’ll get more scrunched as goes. It does. It’s worth it.

“Could we check that place out?” There’s a sort of tentativeness in Keith’s voice, like he’s testing if the insistent invitation from earlier has been withdrawn but doesn’t want to be obvious about it. He wants to be able to play it off if or when—and Shiro’s betting it’s ‘when’ in Keith’s head—he tells him to forget it. That his plans changed.

Shiro takes some joy in smiling and nodding, “Sure. We can grab lunch while we’re out.”

“Sure,” Keith says, and it could be the late summer sun fading out of the sky, but he thinks he can see a slight smile in the shadows on Keith’s face.


End file.
